Today was a big day for Adobe Photoshop users. This morning Adobe made the official announcement for their new Creative Suite 5, otherwise known as, CS5. They started the day with an hour-long online video launch for CS5, which includes tools for Web design, video editing, print design and publishing, as well as photography. Based on what I’ve seen and read, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is a very worthy upgrade with powerful new tools and faster, more efficient image processing – especially if you’re still using Photoshop CS3, like me…

One of the most important changes with Adobe Photoshop CS5 is that it uses 64-bit processing for both Mac and Windows. With CS4, Adobe offered a special 64-bit edition for Windows users but CS5 is all 64-bit. Minimum requirements for Windows users are a Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon 64 processor with 1 GB of RAM and Windows XP with Service Pack 3. Mac users will need a multicore Intel processor with 1 GB of RAM installed and OS X v10.5.7 or v10.6. Taking advantage of 64-bit processing means Photoshop CS5 users should see noticeable speed improvement with processor-intensive functions. Anyone who’s ever done any HDR or panoramic compositing in Photoshop should be happy about the 64-bit processing – provided they have a machine that can handle it. I expect many photographers, myself included, will need to upgrade their computer in order to install Photoshop CS5. Come to think of it, my last major desktop upgrade was done to accommodate a new Adobe product.

Here are the basic feature enhancements, from the official Adobe Photoshop CS5 press release and Photoshop CS5 Web page: